Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/646

Rh 634 QUINTILIANUS. B.irbatus in B. c. 471 ; but from that year their name constantly appears in the Fasti. The three great patrician families of the Quintia Gens were those of Capitolinus, Cincinnatus, and Fla- MiNiNUS. Besides these we find Quintii with the following surnames : Atta, Claudus, Crispinus, IIiRPiNus, Scapula, Trogus. A few persons, who bear no cognomens, are given under QuiN- Tius. The only surname that occurs on coins is thct of Crispinus Sulpicianus^ which is found on coins struck in the time of Augustus. (Eckhel, vol. V. p. 291.) It is related that it was the custom in the Quintia gens for even the women not to wear any ornaments of gold. (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 1. 6. 6.) COIN OP QUINTIA GENS. QUINTIA'NUS, AFRA'NIUS, a senator of dissolute life, had been ridiculed by Nero in a poem, and in revenge took part in Piso's con- spiracy against that emperor. On the detection of the conspiracy he had to put an end to his life, which he did, says Tacitus, " non ex priore vitae mollitia." (Tac. Ann. xv. 4.9, 56, 70.) QUINTFLIA, or QUINCTFLIA GENS, patrician. This name occurs in the earliest legends of Roman history, for the followers of Romulus among the shepherds are said to have been called Quintilii, just as those of his brother Remus were named Fabii. The Luperci, who were among the most ancient priests of Rome, were divided into two classes, one called Quintilii or Quintiliani, and the other Fabii or Fabiani. (Festus, s. vv. Quinc- iiliani Luperci, and Fabiani ; Ovid. Fast. ii. 378). Hence it has been conjectured with much pro- bability that this priesthood was originally con- fined to these gentes. (Comp. Diet, of Ant. s. v. Luperci.) But although the gens was so ancient, it never attained any historical importance, and its name is best known from the unfortunate Quin- tilius Varus, who was destroyed with his whole army by the Germans in the reign of Augustus. The Quintilii obtained only one consulship and one dictatorship during the whole of the republican period, the former in B. c. 453, and the latter in B. c. 331. During the republic Varus is the only family-name that occurs in the gens ; but in the times of the empirfe we find one or two other cognomens, which are given below. QUINTILIA'NUS, M. FA'BIUS, the most celebrated of Roman rhetoricians, was a native of Calagurris (Calahorra), in the upper valley of the Ebro. He was born about A. d. 40, and if not reared at Rome, must at least have completed his education there, for he himself informs us (v. 7. § 7) that, while yet a very young man, he attended the lectures of Domitius Afer, at that time far ad- vanced in life, and that he witnessed the decline of his powers (v. 7. § 7, x. 1. §§ 11, 24, 36, xii. 1 1. § 3). Now we know from other sources that Do- mitius Afer died in a. d. 59 (Tac. Ann. xiv. 19 ; Frontia. deAquucd. 102). Having revisited Spain, QUINTILIANUS. he returned from thence (a. d. 68) in the train of Galba, and forthwith began to practise at the bar (vii. 2), where he acquired considerable reputation. But he was chiefly distinguished as a teacher of eloquence, bearing away the palm in this depart- ment from all his rivals, and associating his name even to a proverb, with pre-eminence in the art. Among his pupils were numbered Pliny the younger (Plin. ^jo. ii. 14, vi. 6) and the two grand-nephews of Domitian. By this prince he was invested with the insignia and title of consul (consularia ornor menta), and is, moreover, celebrated as the first public instructor, who, in virtue of the endowment by Vespasian (Suet. Vesp. 18), received a regular salary from the imperial exchequer. After having devoted twenty years, commencing probably with A. D. 69, to the laborious duties of his profession, he retired into private life, and is supposed to have died about A. d. 118. Martial, himself from the neighbourhood of Cala- gurris {Ep. i. 62), and fond of commemorating the literary glories of his own land, although he pays a tribute to the fame of Quintilian (xi. 90), " Quintiliane, vagae moderator summe juventae, Gloria Romanae, Quintiliane, togae," — nowhere claims him as a countrjinan, and hence it has been concluded that he was not by birth a Spaniard, but this negative evidence cannot be al- lowed to outweigh the direct testimony of Ausonius (Prof. i. 7), confirmed by Hieronymus {Chron. Eu- seb. Olymp. ccxi. ccxvii.) and Cassiodorus {Chron. sub Domitian. ann. viii,). It is frequently affirmed in histories of Roman lit- erature that the father of Quintilian was a pleader, and that his grandfather was Quintilian the de- claimer spoken of by Seneca, but the passages re- ferred to in proof of these assertions will be found not to warrant any such inferences (ix. 3. § 73 ; Senec. Controv. v. praef. and 33). Doubts have been expressed with regard to the emperor to whom Quintilian was indebted for the honours alluded to above, and it has been confi- dently maintained that Hadrian, not Domitian, was his patron. In the prooemium to the fourth book of the Institutions the author records with grate- ful pride that Domitianus Augustus had committed to his care the grandsons of his sister, — that is, the sons of Flavius Clemens and Domitilla the younger (see Sueton. Dom. 15; Dion Cass. p. 1112, ed. Reimar). Again, Ausonius, in his Gratiarum Actio ad Gratianum, remarks " Quintilianus con- sularia per Clementem ornamenta sortitus honesta- menta nominis potius videtur quam insignia potes- tatis habuisse." It would be false scepticism to doubt that the Clemens here named is the Flavius Clemens to whose children Quintilian acted as pre- ceptor, and if this be admitted, the question seems to be set at rest. To this distinction doubtless the satirist alludes, when he sarcastically declares " Si Fortuna volet fies de rhetore consul." The pecuniary circumstances, also, of Quintilian, have afforded a theme for considerable discussion, in consequence of the (apparently) contradictory statements of Juvenal and Pliny. The former, after inveighing against the unsparing profusion of the rich in all luxurious indulgences connected with the pleasures of the table, as contrasted with the paltry remuneration which they offered to the most distinguished teachers of youth, exclaims (vii. 186),